Sci & Educ (2013) 22:1593–1611

DOI 10.1007/s11191-011-9431-7

A ‘Semantic’ View of Scientific Models for Science

Education

Agustı́n Adúriz-Bravo

Published online: 15 January 2012

 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract In this paper I inspect a ‘semantic’ view of scientific models taken from
contemporary philosophy of science—I draw upon the so-called ‘semanticist family’,
which frontally challenges the received, syntactic conception of scientific theories. I argue
that a semantic view may be of use both for science education in the classrooms of all
educational levels, and for research and innovation within the discipline of didactics of
science. I explore and characterise a model-based account of the nature of science, and
derive some implications that may be of interest for our community.

1 Introduction

The notions of scientific model and scientific modelling have for a long time been present,
in an implicit or ‘latent’ way, in the science curriculum across all educational levels,
especially in the upper secondary school (students aged 15–19). In science classes, it has
been usual practice to work—to a greater or lesser extent—under the guide of the idea that
science ‘models’ the world using abstract representations. However, in the last 10 years,
science education researchers, science curriculum developers, and science teachers have
begun to advocate for an intentional and explicit treatment of this central epistemological
construct of model in the classroom (see Gilbert and Boulter 2000; Erduran and Duschl
2004; Khine and Saleh 2011, for comprehensive literature reviews). That is, to the pre-
viously existing tradition of designing model-based teaching (cf., Clement 2000; Justi
2006), practitioners and theoreticians have added the new requirement that there should
also be discussion around the role of models when talking about the so-called nature of
science (cf., Islas and Pesa 2004; Gobert et al. 2011). This enrichment naturally reinforces
the need to make some theoretical decisions in didactics of science (i.e., science education
as a discipline); I contend that we should decide on—or at least discuss around—which
views on scientific models—of the many available from the philosophy of science—can be

A. Adúriz-Bravo (&)
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
e-mail: aadurizbravo@cefiec.fcen.uba.ar

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valuable for students and teachers in the light of current demands on science education as
expressed in the science curricula of the 21st century.
Along this line, my aim in this paper is to argue in favour of adherence to a semantic
view of scientific models, taken from contemporary philosophy of science, in science
education; concretely, when engaging students in model-based practices and when
teaching them about the nature of models, which are nowadays universal curriculum
requirements.1 I will understand as a semantic view of models any one of a number of
recent and current characterisations of the concept of scientific model that have been
propounded by a range of philosophers that can be situated in a so-called ‘semantic
conception of scientific theories’, opposed to the ‘received view’ in the philosophy of
science, which was syntactic and theory-based. Within such school, several ‘versions’ can
be identified (and this is why we can talk of a ‘semanticist family’). The semanticist family
would range from meta-theoretical structuralism (in its seminal formulation à la Suppes, in
its American version by Joseph Sneed, or in its more sophisticated European version of the
1980s), to the more recent model-based approaches by Fred Suppe, Bas van Fraassen and
Ron Giere, going through several other proposals.2
It is of course difficult to precisely ascertain the range of the expression ‘semantic con-
ception of scientific theories’, since it covers a rather broad diversity of formulations, and it
still remains a matter of debate the question of who should be included or excluded thereof.3
For the purpose of this article, I will rather loosely characterise it through four main points:
1. in this conception, the focus of meta-theoretical analysis is put in how scientific
theories give meaning to the world and make sense to their users, and hence the name
of ‘semantic’ (Guerrero Pino 2000);
2. within such analysis, a scientific theory can be fruitfully characterised as a family or
class of models (Giere 1988);
3. the theory is constituted not only of a class of models, but also of a set of empirical
systems that such theory intends to account for (Lorenzano 2003); and
4. the theory states that there is substantive relationship between its models and its
systems: it ‘empirically asserts’ that some phenomena are adequately accounted for by
the models (Dı́ez and Moulines 1999).
My argument around the merits of a semantic view of scientific models for science
education (Sects. 6, 7) will first require a characterisation of how models have been
conceptualised by different philosophical schools in the 20th century (Sects. 4, 5). Such
characterisation can be made through identifying the essential ‘traits’ of models, i.e., the
core conceptual points that philosophers of science have chosen to define and describe
what models are (see similar approaches in Chamizo 2006, 2010; Oh and Oh 2011).
In order to initiate my characterisation, I need to face a first obstacle. The term ‘model’
is used in the natural language, in science and technology, and in the philosophy of science
with a range of different meanings. Sections 2, 3 and 4 are devoted to the discussion of
these issues.

1
For instance, in the very influential Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, models (defined as ‘‘tentative schemes or structures that correspond to real objects, events, or
classes of events, and that have explanatory power’’) are given a paramount role. This centrality of models is
echoed in a vast number of curriculum documents in the US and many other countries.
2
For an introduction to these and other ‘semanticist’ authors, see Downes (1992), Suppe (2000) and
Newton-Smith 2001 [in English], Dı́ez and Moulines (1999) and Lorenzano (2003) [in Spanish].
3
See Suppe (2000), Lorenzano (2003).

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2 Organising the Polysemy of the Term ‘Model’

Let us focus on the use of the term ‘model’ in everyday language. In English, for instance,
we say that Mona Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo ‘‘posed as a model for Leonardo da
Vinci’’, or that a particular toy car ‘‘is an accurate model of a Formula 1 car’’. In the
context of the first example, ‘model’ refers to the input (starting point) of a representation
process: the actual object (in this case, a person of flesh and bone) that is represented in
some way (in a famous painting); meanwhile, in the context of the second example,
‘model’ refers to the the output (end point) of a representation process: a symbolic rep-
resentation in a particular means (in this case, a scale model or replica) that is made of
a real object (the racing car).4
Many instances of the use of the term ‘model’ in natural language can be seen as
‘intermediate cases’ between the two previous, radically opposed, uses of the term, such as
in the expressions ‘the latest model of a cell phone’, ‘model of economic growth’ or ‘haute
couture model’. However—and at risk of being perhaps excessively reductive—it is
convenient for my argument in this paper to organise the uses of the common sense idea of
model in the two broad categories that I mentioned above: in one case, a model (model-
input) is what is there to be modelled, and in the other case (model-output), a model is what
arises from a modelling process.5 In my examples, Mona Lisa is the (real) object to be
modelled—model-input—, and the toy car is the (symbolic) object resulting from mod-
elling a Formula 1 car—model-output.
At this point, I find it useful to present a first-order approximation: I will respectively
re-label these two ends of the representation process, focusing on the way they are used, as
‘models-for’, i.e., model objects taken from reality for a representation, and ‘models-from’,
i.e., representational models constructed from a real object. Accordingly, Mona Lisa is a
model for a painting/painter, and the toy car is a model from an actual vehicle. However, I
will now try to show that this mapping is too direct and, in consequence, conceptually
insufficient to capture the complexity of the use of the construct of model in philosophical
analyses.
So far, I have classified models as either the ‘stuff’ (model-input) or the outcome
(model-output) of modelling attempts; I have also introduced the distinction between a
model chosen to be represented (model-for) and a model fabricated out of reality (model-
from). I have then somewhat simplistically related by bijection the latter distinction to the
former. It is time to acknowledge that these two conceptualisations are in fact rather
independent, and can be combined for a richer picture of the use of the idea of model
(Table 1):
1. A model-input can be a model-for when it is a paradigm: an archetype or exemplar for
something, a canon that should be followed, imitated, or copied. We can say that
‘‘Mother Teresa of Calcutta is a model of humanitarianism’’.
2. But a model-input can also be a model-from, when it is an instance: a case, realisation
or embodiment of something, a representative example of a general or abstract
situation or of a set of principles. A possible example would be: ‘‘Amsterdam is a
model sustainable city’’.

4
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer of this paper for suggesting the inclusion of this terminology of
‘input’ and ‘output’, which I find quite appealing.
5
This distinction can also be rephrased, in a highly technical manner, using the Latin-like terms model-
andum (the [passive] thing that is to be modelled) and modelans (the [active] thing that models).

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Table 1 Two conceptual tools to think about models, and their possible combination
Models in the process of representation

Model-input Model-output

Models and their Model-for Paradigm Design

use A thing worth of imitation A scheme of something to be made
Model- Instance Copy
from An embodiment of abstract A faithful representation of
principles something

3. On the other hand, a model-output can be a model-from when it is a copy: a simplified

version, replica, sketch, imitation or simulation of something. In this case, the model
only captures some central and characteristic elements of what is being ‘copied’—
chosen according to an ‘intentional’ view—, and overlooks details; this allows a
simpler understanding and manipulation of reality. We can thus say that ‘‘students
participated in a model of the United Nations’’.
4. Finally, a model-output can be a model-for when it is a design: a plan, project, scheme,
prototype, blueprint or scale model of something that does not materially exist so far.
An instance of this use would be that ‘‘the exhibition features a model of the
underwater tunnel’’.
This rather intricate polysemy of the term ‘model’ may not be very relevant in everyday
life, where the context of use indicates which of the multiple meanings and connotations
are more appropriate, and where a certain extent of ambiguity is expectable and even
desirable. However, in the realm of science (and technology), this richness of natural
language is certainly an obstacle to fully grasp the meaning of the elusive concept of
‘model’, and hence my efforts in this section to present some tools in order to organise its
polysemy.

3 Conceptualising Models in/for Science

The theoretical apparatus that I presented in Table 1 of Sect. 2 was primarily intended to
capture some important distinctions in the use of the general idea of model, but it can also
be employed to understand that there exist different conceptualisations (sometimes even at

Table 2 The conceptual apparatus to think about models (Table 1) applied to the pendulum, a model from
physics
Models in the process of representation

Model-input Model-output

Models Model- A pendulum is a real object that is studied by A pendulum is a set of specifications to
and for physics in order to abstract the laws of its understand/construct artifacts with
their movement predictable behaviour
use Model- A pendulum is a real object that (best) A pendulum is a highly stylised and
from exmplifies the physical notion of harmonic simplified representation of a
oscillations swinging object

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odds) of what a scientific model is. In Table 2, I take the model ‘pendulum’, one of the
most discussed in the meta-scientific literature, and I characterise it in the four possible
ways that I have introduced. This scientific model will reappear in my paper as I introduce
further analytical refinements.
Because of all these conceptual subtleties, trying to determine—if only temporarily—
the scope of the concepts of scientific theory and model (before, when, or after usign them)
would be, at the same time, an important requirement for scientific activity and a sensible
demand for the philosophy of science (Mosterı́n 1984; Estany 1993). This issue is the focus
of this section.
In specialised language, the theoretical term ‘model’ is used both by scientists per-
forming their activity and by philosophers of science reflecting on the nature of such
activity. As I stated, the term was taken from natural language, and then specified
according to the new pragmatic context in which it is intended to operate (Estany 1993;
Gutiérrez 2005). Generally speaking, in scientific research the idea of ‘model’ denotes a
theoretical representation of a complex reality that is developed to facilitate the study of its
behaviour.6 In science, the emphasis is put on the more abstract and symbolic (i.e., ‘theory-
laden’) aspects of a model and on its purpose—the fact that it is created to ‘mediate’
between reality and our theoretical grasp of it.
However, this specification performed on the broad range of meanings of the term ‘model’
does not eliminate the debates around the scope of the concept, which, quite on the contrary,
have not yet been closed. It could perhaps be said that there are only a few features of models
on which most scientists and philosophers have agreed through time (cf., Chamizo 2006);
one of these, particulary interesting for the argument in this paper, is that a scientific model is
a ‘surrogate’ (i.e., a highly technical version of a substitute) of the actual system being
studied. The complexity of such system, with many components richly interrelated, makes its
scientific treatment impossible; accordingly, scientists replace (re-present) those systems in
a way that only some elements of interest are retained. Models then work as mediators
between theory and empiria and as facilitators of our representing and intervening on reality
(cf., Lombardi 1998; Morrison and Morgan 1999; Greca and Moreira 2000).
Beyond the agreements on surrogation, mediation or other features, there is still great
divergence around the meaning and implications of the concept of model both in science
(cf., Dı́ez and Moulines 1999), and in didactics of science (cf., Gutiérrez 2005). Thus, one
of the aims of my paper is to go back in the history of the philosophy of science to shed
light onto the genealogy of the current debates.

4 A History of Philosophical Conceptions of Models

In this section, I will discuss some of the theoretical characterisations of the idea of
scientific model that were propounded in the philosophy of science of the 20th century.
I only concentrate in this rather short period of time due to two facts: (1) the construct of
model was introduced rather recently, and (2) it was consistently invisibilised in classical,
syntactic, philosophical analyses of science, which were strongly conducted around the-
ories7 (hence the use of the adjective ‘meta-theoretical’ when referring to such analyses).

6
Confront with the technical definition of model in the on-line Oxford Dictionary as ‘‘a simplified
description, especially a mathematical one, of a system or process, to assist calculations and predictions’’.
7
For a canonical presentation, discussion, and critique of this syntactic approach to the analysis of scientific
theories, see Suppe (2000).

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Let us start with the first systematic and ‘institutionalised’ reflections on the nature of
science, carried out by the philosophical schools of logical positivism and critical ratio-
nalism during the 1920s and 1930s. These schools bypassed the contradiction between the
different meanings of model that I presented in Sect. 2 above. Firstly, they only concen-
trated on the distinction that I labelled ‘models-input v. models-output’, and they blurred
the distinction that I labelled ‘models-for v. models-from’. Then, they suggested that the
most interesting use of the idea of model in science required considering scientific models
as models-input, i.e., the ‘Mother Teresas’ or ‘Amsterdams’ in their respective theories.
They thus took models (especially in physics, which was the science most intensively
studied by them) as examples with content of (i.e., for/from) the abstract, formal structures
provided by the statements or propositions constituting the physical theories. Table 3
revisits the example of the pendulum in order to show how this early conceptualisation of
scientific models would apply.
Logical positivists and critical rationalists established a long intellectual tradition that
placed scientific theories at the centre of philosophical analysis, transforming them into the
‘structural and functional units’ of the science building. For these first ‘professional’
philosophers of science, theories had logical priority over models; models were considered
derivative entities, hierarchically subordinate. These philosophers studied what they saw as
‘successful’ theories (e.g., Newtonian mechanics) or ‘failed’ theories (e.g., the theory of
phlogiston) without paying much attention to the nature of scientific models. The under-
lying assumption was that there existed in fact some real entities that satisfied the
contraints imposed by the linguistic propositions constituing a theory—such entities being
the models of the theory.
After World War II, ‘conservative’ philosophical schools continued this trend of sep-
arating between two strongly opposed uses of the term ‘model’, but now proposing that
formal sciences (mathematics, logic) privileged models-input, while empirical sciences
(physics, chemistry, biology, geology…) favoured models-output (cf., Mosterı́n 1984;
Estany 1993). I will examine this distinction in more detail. For the more formalist phi-
losophy of science, a typical mathematical model is, as I stated above, a model of a theory.
That is, the model is a (real or non-real) system that permits abstracting the basic,
non-demonstrable guiding principles in the theory (called ‘axioms’), or at least it consti-
tutes the most primitive and paradigmatic concretion of that theory. A mathematical model
is either a ‘Mother Theresa’ to be taken as exemplar in order to build the theory that
represents it, or an ‘Amsterdam’, that is, a particularly characteristic instance of that
theory. Using this first ‘definition’ of models, different numerical sets (natural, rational,
real…) can be seen as concrete and modellic instantiations of abstract mathematical
structures with no particular content but just formal, relational properties. It should be

Table 3 A possible reconstruction of the model ‘pendulum’ à la Vienna Circle

Models in the process of representation

Model-input Model-output

Models and their use Model-for The pendulum can be understood as a physical
system that, when studied, generates the
theoretical framework of harmonic oscillation,
Model-from or, more usually, it can be seen as a physical system
that satisfies a particular subset of laws of classical
mechanics

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noted that such structures might or might not have been formulated from those sets (and
this is indeed a point of debate in the epistemology of mathematics).
For these same philosophical schools, the typical physical model is, in turn, a model of a
system. It is its representational, operational counterpart; abstracted, simplified and
approximate, it allows a quantitative and nomological (i.e., law-based) treatment of the
system. Often, this representation is supported in a concrete means, and sometimes with a
strong visual component. It operates in this way as a partial simulation of the ‘United
Nations session’, or as a scale model of a ‘tunnel under construction’. According to this
second ‘definition’ of models, a pendulum (in its abstract meaning of simple harmonic
oscillator) would be a dimensionless mass suspended from a weightless, inextensible cord;
after pulling or pushing the mass, it ‘goes back and forth’ without stopping. Each oscil-
lation always takes the same characteristic time, called ‘period’. Therefore, this physical
oscillator would be in some respect a ‘copy’ from, or a ‘design’ for, more complex real
objects (pendulums, slings, but also springs, rubber bands, ropes…).
The neo-positivistic and analytical portray of models that I have just applied to the
model ‘pendulum’ completes Table 3, providing the second column that was left empty
there. A pendulum can be seen as a model-output, representing ‘real’ pendulums. It is
mainly a model-from, (inductively?) abstracted from a variety of objects showing similar
behaviours; it can also be seen as a model-for, in the sense that it fixes the criteria that need
to be possessed by an object to be considered a pendulum.
The aforementioned conceptual distinction between mathematical and physical models,
however, did not imply placing the construct of model at the centre of the philosophical
discussion, which was, in the 1950s and 1960s, still strongly dominated by the study of the
construct of theory. I will discuss in the following sections how it was only with some of
the recent and current philosophical views on the nature of science—those that, according
to many authors, are the most relevant for didactics of science8—that models began to be
considered as the most fundamental kind of scientific representation, which deserves to be
thoroughly examined.
I will now briefly review the evolution of three historical forms of understanding what a
model is; this will lead to the current conceptualisation in which I am particulary interested
for science education (though it should be readily acknowledged that there are several
other conceptualisations coexisting with it). The conceptualisation that I choose—the
semantic view—, although not shared by all philosophers of science, now enjoys predic-
ament, as it can be seen in the vast academic production around it. My thesis is that it may
also prove to be most suggestive for didactics of science in the near future (cf., Giere
1999a, b; Izquierdo-Aymerich 2000; Adúriz-Bravo 2001, 2005, 2010).
Summarily, within the philosophy of science, ideas about what a scientific model is
have changed from 1920 to 2010 in a way that, in my opinion, could be reconstructed—
omitting the most technical details—with the aid of the intuitive notion of ‘example’.
According to my reconstruction, in the period under consideration, there have been at least
three major conceptualisations of models (Adúriz-Bravo 2011):
1. For logical positivism and the received view (c. 1920–1960), a scientific model
was any example of a theory; the theory was considered the central entity for
epistemological analysis.
2. For the new philosophy of science (c. 1950–1980), the model became a paradigmatic
example (i.e., particularly worthy of imitation) of a theory.

8
See Izquierdo-Aymerich (2000), Develaki (2007), Koponen (2007), Sensevy et al. (2008).

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3. Finally, for the semantic conception of scientific theories (c. 1970–2010), the model
was identified with an intended example of a theory (that is, an example that the theory
is conceived to explain).
The very influential received view of scientific thories, in the 50s and 60s, studied in
depth the logical and linguistic aspects of scientific knowledge. For these philosophers,
empirical theories were ‘interpretable’ axiomatic calculi (in the sense of formal logic). In
this context, a model was a minor, uninteresting entity: it could be reduced to a system
(structure) that ‘satisfies’ each and every one of the axioms of the scientific theory, of
which it becomes a model after this process of ‘interpretation’ (Dı́ez and Moulines 1999).
Misusing a popular example, we could say that, according to this conception of the nature
of science, the Solar System is a model of (the theory of) Newtonian classical mechanics,
since it is an actually existing set of bodies that move ‘governed’ by the three principles or
laws that Isaac Newton postulated in his 1687 Principia. Obviously, this ‘system’ does not
strictly include all movements of all bodies in space near the Sun, but a highly stylised, and
only approximate, version of some of those bodies and movements.
With the emergence of the so-called ‘new philosophy of science’ in the 1960s and
1970s, Thomas Kuhn proposed to focus on yet another aspect of the idea of model, which,
according to his view, was absolutely central in order to understand the functioning of the
scientific enterprise. When trying to refine and clarify his notion of paradigm, Kuhn
formulated the construct of exemplar, which can be understood as a scientific model ‘to
imitate’ in the search for new solutions to the problems that are investigated, solutions that
should be inspired in that canonical and foundational solution that is followed closely when
doing ‘normal’ science (cf., Kuhn 1962; Dı́ez and Moulines 1999; Galagovsky 2008).
From this second conception of the nature of science, the explanation of the oxidation of
iron would be a particularly important achievement (or ‘success’) of Lavoisier’s (theory of)
chemistry, working as a model since it sheds light onto other phenomena that are being
studied at the same time (cf., Izquierdo-Aymerich 2007). That is, iron oxidation is invested
with the property of being a Kuhnian paradigm (in the restricted sense): it conveys a way of
explaining that could, or rather should, be used for other phenomena that are perceived
‘similar’ to it.
It is interesting to note here that Kuhn’s contribution to the discussion around scientific
models went relatively unnoticed until well into the 1980s, mainly because of the tremendous
intellectual excitement caused by the theses in his 1962 book—The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions—on the role played by ‘externalist’ and ‘irrational’ factors in scientific change.
However, his core idea of ‘model-exemplar’ (strongly suggesting that models should always
be interpreted as models-for) is revamped in current philosophy of science because of its
relevance for a moderately rationalist epistemology. This Kuhnian influence will be apparent
in the notion of models as intended examples that I will review next.
In the third and final ‘stop’ on this historical journey, I focus on the emerging semantic
view of scientific theories of the 1970s and 1980s. Within it, and especially for the
members of the programme called meta-theoretical structuralism, models are the centre of
the ‘applicative’ part of a theory; they constitute a set or class that is characterised by
scientific laws (sensu stricto axioms) of that theory (Moulines 1982; Dı́ez and Moulines
1999; Lorenzano 2008). Along this line, models are ‘projections’ of the theory onto the
world, or their potential realisations. Following Ulises Moulines (1982), one of the leading
exponents of structuralism, models of a theory are the formal correlates of the pieces of
reality that the theory intends to explain. These ‘models-phenomena’ are thus an integral
part of the theory.

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Table 4 The pendulum could be seen as an example of the theory of harmonic oscillations
School of the Kind of model- Possible reconstruction of the model ‘pendulum’
philosophy of example
science

Received view Model as any The pendulum is one system—out of a pool of many other
example systems—that obeys some particular laws of mechanics
New philosophy of Model as a The pendulum embodies the main characteristics of simple
science paradigmatic harmonic motion, and thus serves as exemplar to understand
example other systems
Semanticist family Model as an The pendulum is one system—out of a pool of very few
intended example systems—for which some specific laws of mechanics are
proposed
Different philosophical schools debate about the nature and use of such example

For this third philosophical approach, the model constructed on the pea ‘hybrids’ on
which Gregor Mendel worked belongs to the class of things of which classical genetics
(theory) talks, or to which it refers. That is, this plant satisfies the postulated laws, and it
therefore becomes, as ‘interpreted fact’, an essential part of the body of the theory, which
will be later extended, by analogical mechanisms, to other living beings, which are called
‘Mendelian’ insofar that the theory overtly intends to account for them (cf., Lorenzano
2008).
In order to illustrate the history of models that I have just sketched, Table 4 intends to
look again at the example of the pendulum with the theoretical tools of the received view,
the new philosophy of science (à la Kuhn), and the semanticist family (mainly in its
structuralist version).
The semantic view adds, to the Kuhnian reconstruction of models as ‘cases’ that have
been well solved and are thus exemplary, the more classical requirement that they can all
be represented in analogous semi-formal ways, and formulated as generally and abstractly
as possible (Izquierdo-Aymerich 2007). Thus, semanticism represents a ‘third way’
between the received view and the new philosophy of science, purporting to recur to their
most powerful tools to think about models:
[T]his ‘double strategy’—that pretends to recover the best of each of the preceding periods—
constitutes one of the fundamental characteristics of this [semanticist] approach. (Lorenzano 2001,
p. 38, my translation)

I am particulary interested in the fact that this current semantic view that I am revising
here synthesises in one construct the meanings model-for and model-from, showing that
they can be made compatible with each other and used to characterise the same entities
(cf., Estany 1993; Adúriz-Bravo 2001, 2011). It is here where I think lies one of the most
fruitful traits of a semantic conception of models for science education.
My argument that a scientific model is both model-for and a model-from revolves
around the idea that models combinedly capture the two different (and, to common sense,
somewhat opposed) meanings of the Latin word ‘modus’, from where the term ‘model’
was later derived. Modus means both ‘manner’ and ‘measure’.9 A manner is to a certain
extent identifiable with model-for, since it is the way in which something exists or occurs.
On the other hand, a measure is to a certain extent identifiable with model-from: it is a
degree, intensity, proportion, or correspondence by comparison. But it can be contended

9
In English, there are traces of both meanings in some derived words: for instance, modal (‘‘relating to a
mode/manner’’) and modular (‘‘based on a module/measure’’).

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that every manner is a measure, i.e., that an embodied set of characteristic properties can
serve as a canon (unit/pattern) for other embodiments or ‘realisations’ to be compared with.
Thus, a scientific model captures essential elements of a system and becomes a way of
(analogically) understanding other systems.
It may also be important to remember here that the semantic conception of models is
compatible with both a realist reconstruction of science (which states that what the model
says about the world has a substantive, deep relationship with what the world is), and with
empiricist or instrumentalist reconstructions of science (which say that models ‘save’
phenomena: they are only abstract, empirically adequate machinery, built in order to
calculate, predict and manipulate).10 As Fred Suppe (2000, p. S105) puts it,
[d]epending on mapping relationships [between models and phenomena] required for theoretical
adequacy, realist, quasi-realist or antirealist verions [of the semantic conception of theories] are
obtained.

In this sense, belonging in the semanticist family does not require a ‘hard’ committment
to any of these two strongly opposed ontological stances; therefore, its prospective edu-
cational use would not be tied to science teachers’ views on ‘correspondence’ issues.
The plurality and divergence of theoretical frameworks does not occur only around what
scientific models are and how they relate to theories and reality, which was the object of the
previous sections. There is also a variety of theoretical understandings around other issues on
models and modelling; for instance, how to classify models according to different criteria.
Different typologies produced in the philosophy of science and other disciplines, sup-
ported on a variety of criteria, have been extensively used in the literature of didactics of
science (cf., Gilbert and Boulter 2000; Islas and Pesa 2004; Adúriz-Bravo et al. 2005;
Joshua and Dupin 1993). Thus, authors have talked about: (1) internal, mental models
versus external, ‘expressed’ models (i.e., epistemic models, part of Popper’s (1972) world
3); (2) physical, analogical, or theoretical models (according to their final constituents); (3)
historical models versus current models; (4) personal, idiosyncratic models versus con-
sensus (shared) models; (5) scientists’ models versus pedagogical or didactical models
(that have been ‘transposed’ for teaching); and many others. I briefly retrieve these
typologies, which are not the object of my paper, since, in my opinion, their consistent use
in science education would require prior or simultaneous discussion of the ontological
question of what models are, which is the one I am partially addressing here. However,
many classical texts in didactics of science start with a seemingly uncontroversial defi-
nition of a scientific model and then quickly move to classifications.

5 A Current Philosophical Conception of Models: The Semantic View

Nowadays, the semanticist family that I introduced above is arguably one of the most
developed, well established, and widely accepted schools of the philosophy of science.11
As French and Ladyman (1999, p. 103) state,

10
This is indeed a central point of discussion in the philosophical production of semanticist nature,
as portrayed in the on-going debate between Ron Giere (proposing ‘constructive realism’) and Bas van
Fraassen (proposing ‘constructive empiricism’). For further details around this rather complex matter, which
goes far beyond the scope of my paper, see Diéguez Lucena (1998), Chakravartty (2001).
11
This phrase, of course, should not be taken to imply that I do not recognise the existence of many
other recent and current schools in the philosophy of science. See Estany (1993) and Echeverrı́a (1995)
(in Spanish), Rosenberg (2000) and Ladyman (2002) (in English) for comprehensive and accessible

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A ‘Semantic’ View of Scientific Models 1603

[i]t is perhaps an exaggeration, albeit an excusable one, to claim, as Suppe does, that ‘‘The Semantic
Conception of Theories today probably is the philosophical analysis of the nature of theories most
widely held among philosophers of science’’ […]. Nevertheless, the semantic approach […] does
have the distinction of being one of the very few—perhaps the only—global analyses of science in
these philosophically fractured, post-Kuhnian times.

As I advanced, this school takes its name from the fact that it mainly focuses on the
meaning of scientific theories, as opposed to their ‘syntax’, or pure form. Within the
semantic view (and now excluding meta-theoretical structuralism in its various forms),
there are three leading authors, who have extensively dealt with the issue of the nature of
scientific models: Ronald Giere (b. 1938), Frederick Suppe (b. 1940), and Bas C. van
Fraassen (b. 1941). These philosophers of science have built very different theoretical
frameworks in order to conceive the nature of science,12 but they could be said to agree on
some key points that I will here take as conceptual basis to think about the category of
model from the field of didactics of science.
These key points constitute new insights, more or less radically rupturist when com-
pared to previous conceptualisations. Moreover, such points could be seen as the foun-
dations for a research programme in the philosophy of science of which it can be safely
said that it currently enjoys prestige. I will focus on five of the main features of the current
semantic, model-based view that could illuminate our work in science education:
1. Giere, Suppe and van Fraassen shift their interest towards how scientific theories give
meaning to the world on which they are applied, and how they make sense for those
who are applying them (the ‘cognitive agents’, including students and teachers); they
are less interested in the strict logical and linguistic structure of theories. In this sense,
and opposing the usual syntactic approach, they prioritise a semantic, pragmatic and
rhetorical approach (Adúriz-Bravo 2001, 2011).
2. These scholars assume that theories cannot be reduced just to the theoretical
propositions that constitute them; rather, theories also contain the facts interpreted by
them. Moreover, scientific theories are not reducible to knowledge of propositional
nature, since they also contain a ‘know-how’ around the explanations and interventions
that can be performed with them.13 A theory is therefore a family of models, but more
than the addition of these models, because these are linked by logical and experimental
relationships that give coherence to the whole set (Joshua and Dupin 1993).
3. They consider that theories are best identified and characterised by their corresponding
classes of models; they therefore deem more relevant to meta-theoretically study
models than theories. This kind of approach is called ‘model-based’; its focus is now
placed on understanding the profound nature of scientific models, rather than on
placing these models within a closed theoretical network described through statements.
In this sense, authors from the model-based view

Footnote 11 continued
presentations of contemporary trends in the philosophy of science. It can also be pointed out that the
semanticist family—the school chosen for this paper—and all other up-to-date philosophies of science are
almost completely absent in didactics of science.
12
See Estany (1993) and Dı́ez and Moulines (1999) (in Spanish), Newton-Smith (2000) and Frigg (2006)
(in English) for presentations—of various degrees of complexity—of the similarities and differences
between these three authors.
13
It can be contended that these praxic and ‘enactive’ aspects of a model are not very well developed by the
semantic conception. As an anonymous reviewer of this paper pointed out, the overemphasis on repre-
sentation may constitute a weak side of this view of scientific models—at least in academic philosophy of
science—(cf., Knuuttila and Voutilainen 2003).

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1604 A. Adúriz-Bravo

believe that it can be shown that a reinterpretation of scientific theories as sets of models is more
successful for an understanding of scientific theorising […], and can provide a satisfactory picture of
the relationship between scientific theories and the real world because of the mediating role models
[…]. (Develaki 2007, p. 729)
4. Giere, Suppe and van Fraassen assume that there is no direct relationship between
what we say (propositions) and phenomena; this relationship is mediated by models
understood as abstract representations of the world. Such representations cannot be
reduced to propositions or to reality (Justi 2006).
5. These authors consider that the different linguistic forms under which the same model
can be ‘presented’ are to some extent ‘equivalent’. They do not assume the primacy or
superiority of some of these forms (the axiomatic, for instance) over the others. In this
sense, they are much more flexible than standard philosophy of science, since non-rigidly
formalised knowledge can be considered theoretical and can be expressed (‘defined’)
with very different languages: scale models, drawings, paradigmatic facts, metaphors,
gestures… They can be presented in a very simple way, emphasizing only their essential
elements so that they conserve their explanatory power (Izquierdo-Aymerich 2007).
The last two decades are witnessing a powerful intersection between this large and
intellectually active semantic view and the contributions of a model-based view of science,
a ‘representational’ approach to theories, and the so-called ‘cognitive turn’ occurring in all
social sciences (cf., Rouse 1998; Dı́ez and Moulines 1999). In this emerging arena, there
are different concrete ‘definitions’ of models. Giere labels as ‘theoretical model’ an
abstract, non-linguistic entity that behaves just as prescribed by the statements or propo-
sitions (in any chosen symbolic system) that define that entity (cf., Giere 1988; Estany
1993; Dı́ez and Moulines 1999). According to Giere, models, and not the propositional
‘core’ of the theory, are what usually appears in college and university textbooks designed
to train new scientists.
For Giere (1988), theoretical models substantially relate to two elements: (1) the
heterogeneous set of symbolic, expressive resources used to define them, and (2) the
world (system) of which they are models, with which they maintain a relationship of
likeness that is technically called ‘similarity’. The so-called ‘theoretical hypotheses’ are
the vehicle of scientific knowledge to make assertions with empirical content about
reality: they state that a model resembles the system in such and such aspects and with
such and such degrees of adjustment. These hypotheses are therefore susceptible to
testing, they can therefore be corroborated or refuted in a partial and approximate way
during scientific research.
Suppe and van Fraassen, and of course other semanticist authors, provide alternate,
more or less explicit, definitions of models. Most of these definitions are more restrictive
than that of Giere’s. But all of them conserve the core semanticist elements that I
specified—with Giere’s own technical language—in the preceding paragraphs. I have
italicised those elements in the following general description of a semantic conception of
a model:
A model is true by definition. An ideal gas is by definition just what behaves in accordance with the
ideal-gas law. The empirical of factual question about a model is whether it ‘‘applies’’ to anything
closely enough to be scientifically useful –to explain and predict its behaviour. Thus, it will be a
hypothesis that the Newtonian model applies well enough to, or is sufficiently well satisfied by, the
solar system. Once we specify ‘‘well enough’’ or ‘‘sufficiently well satisfied’’, this is a hypothesis that
usually turns out to be true. […] A theory is a set of hypotheses claiming that particular sets of things
in the world are satisfied to varying degrees by a set of models which reflect some similarity or unity.
(Rosenberg 2000, p. 98, emphasis added)

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A ‘Semantic’ View of Scientific Models 1605

6 Advantages of a Semantic Conception of Scientific Models for Didactics of Science

and Science Education

In this section I will derive, from the different elements of the semantic conception that
I presented in Sects. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, what I see as ‘advantages’ of the use of a semantic view
of scientific models in science education. My argument builds to a certain extent upon prior
proposals, mainly by Mercè Izquierdo-Aymerich (2000) and Ron Giere himself (in two
papers in Spanish concerning the possible contributions of his ideas for didactics of science:
Giere 1999a, b). However, the suggestions contained here are my own elaborations.
The section is organised in two subsections. The first one enumerates a few key
ideas that emerge when applying some of the traits of the semantic characterisation of
models to what I call ‘school scientific models’. I understand a school scientific model
as the product of a process of ‘didactical transposition’ operating on a scientific model
that has been selected for teaching (cf., Izquierdo-Aymerich and Adúriz-Bravo 2003).
In the first subsection, I dicuss some consequences of conceptualising the models taught
and learnt in the science classrooms from a semantic point of view; I organise the
subsection in six paragraphs that closely follow the four ‘main points’ that I used to
characterise the semantic conception of scientific theories in Sect. 1, the ‘non-technical
reconstruction’ of semanticism in Sect. 4, and the five ‘main features’ of the model-
based view in Sect. 5.
In the second subsection, I retrieve the idea of model-based science teaching and
examine the notion of scientific modelling in the classroom. I revise how a semantic
perspective would interact with these already established notions.

6.1 Using a Semantic Version of School Scientific Models

In my opinion, resorting to a semantic view of models in order to understand and use

school scientific models could result in the following advantages:
1. A shift of focus from syntax to semantics would imply paying less attention to formal
aspects and more attention to meaningfulness in science education. The semantic
conception of models opens possibilities to work in the science classrooms by
removing the heavy burden imposed by ‘formalisms’ (which traditionally needed to
be followed to the letter when making school science). Now, it would not be that
important to teach how to reproduce and manipulate compact propositional staments
(e.g., ‘F = m.a’); the focus would be shifted to understanding certain key phenomena
(an apple falling from a tree, a chandelier swinging, a skateboard coming to a halt,
two billiard balls colliding, etc.) that can be represented with ‘theoretical’ (i.e.,
abstract, general, explanatory, fruitful) ideas. This would help bring into science
education the semantic requirement that models make sense to their users—in this
case, the students.
2. School scientific models could be used as theoretical representations of the world.
Beyond the quite sophisticated technical details, a semantic view of a scientific model
is altogether simple, comprehensive and powerful. A surrogate representation in any
symbolic means that allows thinking, talking and acting rigorously and profoundly on
the systems under study would qualify as a theoretical model: not only the usual
abstract and highly mathematised models, but also scale models, images, tables,
graphs, networks, analogies… provided that they enable the users to describe, explain,

123
1606 A. Adúriz-Bravo

predict and intervene. This would be in tune with the semantic suggestion that theories
can be better understood in terms of their models.
3. Models could be introduced in the classroom by means of ‘reconstructed facts’ (cf.
Izquierdo-Aymerich and Adúriz-Bravo 2003). These key, theoretically reconstructed,
‘paradigmatic’ facts would enable students to give meaning to phenomena of the world
around them (e.g., gravitation, oscillations, motion, collisions…), which would appear
to them ‘similar’ to such facts. This approach would import taking profit from the
semantic idea that theories contain the systems explained and can be used as models-
for to understand, and intervene on, them.
4. School scientific modelling could be seen as testing hypothesis on the degree of
adjustment between our ideas and interventions. A ‘new’, less dogmatic, scientific
method could be introduced in the science classroom (cf., Giere 1999b; Adúriz-Bravo
2008); such method would consist of deriving consequences from our theoretical ideas
(‘putting models to work’) and extracting data from observation and experiments. The
aim would be comparing the results of these two co-ordinated sets of activities and
establishing how our ideas ‘talk of the world’. This would take into account the idea of
‘empirical assertion’ that semanticists propound.
5. School scientific models would suggest robust explanations. Another central element
of the semanticist proposals is the suggestion that some important theoretical models
of science are, at the same time, models-from and models-for (cf., Giere 1988; Adúriz-
Bravo 2011). On the one hand, they are the abstract counterparts of the modelled
systems, and, on the other hand, they serve as exemplars in order to create new models,
more specific or more general, that can be meaningfully linked to the initial ones.
Thus, a school scientific model would be an epitome: a typical instance standing for a
larger reality and a perfect example of a type, setting a norm. For example, the ‘cell
model’ would serve in the science classroom as a highly schematic version of
something that can be seen under the microscope, and also as a blueprint (in the
architectural sense) that guides our description, understanding and manipulation of
different cell types (neurons, liver cells, white cells, skin cells…).
In science classes, this ‘translation’ of the explanatory elements of a model would be,
as I already indicated, of analogical nature: the highly abstract way in which a school
scientific model of a phenomenon can be described ensures its ability to be projected
onto other phenomena under study, between which similarity is perceived. As Hernán
Miguel puts it,
[an] abstract model can have two interpretations: one in which the abstract entities of the model
correspond to [the model-for, taken as analogans] (…); another interpretation in which the abstract
entities are assigned [the meanings of the new model, taken as analogandum]. Evidencing this
double interpretation of a same abstract model permits generating in students the idea that they can
have structural knowledge of [a phenomenon] and that perhaps, with the limitations of the analogy,
other [phenomena] could be well represented using the same abstract model. (Miguel 1999, p. 95,
my translation)
6. School scientific models would carry consensual scientific aims and values. An
analogy that is repeatedly invoked to explain the semantic conception of a model is
that of a map. A map would be a way to ‘see’ a particular piece of land. The map is
defined by a diversity of means of expression (colours, lines, letters, symbols, etc.),
and captures only some aspects of the real site (topography, hydrography, climate,
political divisions, etc.), aspects that have been intendedly selected because of a
particular interest. The map is not homomorphic with respect to its original
(for example, it is two dimensional, and has arbitrary colours and letters, as opposed

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to the terrain); it is just ‘similar’—in some aspects and to some degrees—to the land it
stands for (‘surrogates’). As a map allows us to move on the field with certain aims, a
scientific model serves as a guide to ‘navigate’ certain intended portions of the natural
world according to a set of theoretical ‘game rules’ (cf., Izquierdo-Aymerich 2004)
established by the users.

6.2 A Semantic View of Models in School Scientific Modelling

A number of philosophers of science state that modelling (‘acting-with-models’) is one of

the most important scientific activities (cf., Herfel et al. 1995; Magnani et al. 1999). The
idea of modelling has also been gaining momentum in didactics of science.14 But it can be
contended that such idea crucially depends on the conception of what a model is that we
put into practice when designing and executing any scientific activity. This subsection
briefly tackles the issue of possible results of introducing a semantic view of models in
school scientific modelling.
A first remark is required around what we should understand by ‘modelling’. As with
the construct of model, there are also important disagreements on this issue. We could
consider at least four main senses with which the idea of ‘modelling’ is used in science
education15 (Adúriz-Bravo 2011):
1. ‘modelling’ as the construction or creation of original scientific models, new with
respect to the body of established knowledge in a particular historical moment;
2. ‘modelling’ as the process of subsuming the scientific facts being investigated under
available models that can explain, or account for, them;
3. ‘modelling’ as the adjustment of established models after the emergence of new,
surprising, or anomalous data during research; and
4. ‘modelling’ as the intellectual ‘exercise’ of applying existing models to explain facts
studied in a learning environment.
We could therefore say that there exists scientific modelling in all the ‘contexts of
scientific activity’ (Echeverrı́a 1995): innovation, application, evaluation and education.
On the one hand, science develops more or less innovative theoretical models in order to
tackle intellectual challenges (technically, ‘scientific problem solving’); these models can
be generated from previous models by analogy, combination or refinement, but they can
also appear ex novo, through the most complicated cognitive mechanisms (including
dreaming, illumination, and intuition, accident, coincidence, or serendipity, revelation…).
In this first context, the semantic analogy of models as abstract maps may be of use.
Secondly, established models can be intendedly applied to the explanation of puzzling
facts through very elaborate abductive and analogical reasoning showing that, in some
way, the facts to be explained are ‘similar’ to those models, which are prospective
(hypothetical) candidates to explain them (Adúriz-Bravo 2005). In this second sense of

14
The amount of literature around this topic is huge. See, for instance, Gilbert and Boulter (2000), Greca
and Moreira (2000), Erduran and Duschl (2004), Halloun (2004, 2007), Schwarz and White (2005), Schwarz
et al. (2009), Khan (2007), Sensevy et al. (2008) (in English), Moreira et al. (2002), Gallego Badillo (2004),
Gutiérrez (2004) and Izquierdo-Aymerich (2004) (in Spanish).
15
As indicated by an anonymous reviewer of this paper, the fact that the verb ‘model’ and the noun
‘modelling’ are used with such amplitude in science education is, for philosophical considerations, rather
worrying, but, at the same time, serves as a clear indication of the importance allotted to those ideas in the
new science curricula and practices.

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1608 A. Adúriz-Bravo

modelling, the semantic insistence on models to be understood as models-for could be

illuminating.
Thirdly, in this process of making facts intelligible in scientific research, new phe-
nomena, observations and results, more and better empirical data, or additional theoretical
knowledge, may force the need for adjustments in the accepted models; in this way, details
are added and models are refined and improved. These processes may be captured by the
semantic notion that models account for phenomena.
Finally, in the science classrooms of all educational levels, the process of linking facts
and models, even if it is trivial for scientists’ science, certainly appears as new to students.
Students ‘reconstruct’, assisted by the group, robust school scientific models in order to
illuminate issues that are intriguing to them, or they ‘put into action’ the learned models in
order to explain themselves and others some issues of interest. In this last scenario, the very
notion of semantic (as opposed to syntactic) approach appears to be playing an important
role.
In summary, I think that the theoretical framework proposed by the semantic view could
be of great use in order to reflect upon all the different meanings of school scientific
modelling. According to a semantic portray, when doing science, scientists utilise a
number of models that carry the theoretical knowledge to which they adhere. In their
activity, these consensus models are used as models-for: they suggest new phenomena that
can become intended applications. New applications, in turn, force scientists to expand and
modify their models. Finally, succesful fittings between models and phenomena embody
the theoretical knowledge that can thus be transmitted to new ‘users’. It could then be said
that scientists resort to a set of ‘rules for action’ that dictate how they should proceed in
order to model satisfactorily in any of the four senses that I outlined above: inventing,
applying, refining, and learning models.

7 Some Final Remarks

Along this paper, I have assumed the thesis that a shift from a theory-based view, clearly
felt as insufficient, to a more educationally fruitful model-based view is taking place in
didactics of science (cf., Erduran and Duschl 2004; Stewart et al. 2005; Develaki 2007).
This shift, though significantly delayed, replicates to a certain extent what happened in the
philosophy of science as explained in the preceding sections. In our discipline, the ideas of
scientific models and modelling have become issued around which there is very active
thinking and working; all this academic production is already starting to bear fruit for
concrete teaching practices.
According to some authors in our field, the philosophical contributions that I outlined
above, especially those from the semantic view in its most ‘mature’ version (i.e., of the last
20 years), are illuminating when it comes to: (1) teaching students some important sci-
entific models and how to model, and (2) critically reflecting on the notion of model with
students. This is because the ‘pillars’ of the semantic programme would admit a valid
transposition for the design of a richer school science informed by the nature of science
(cf., Izquierdo-Aymerich 2000); I presented some elements for such transposition in the
previous section.
In the case of teaching models and modelling, the various philosophical positions that I
quickly reviewed in this paper, and especially Giere’s (1988) approach, could prove, in my
opinion, very suggestive for science education. Giere’s theoretical framework appears to be
rigorous and flexible enough to work in class with school scientific models that genuinely

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allow understanding the functioning of the natural world through abstract ideas. At the
same time, those school scientific models—if conceptualised using Giere’s ideas—would
not be so far away from the conceptions that children, teenagers, and young people bring to
school, at least in terms of their shared cognitive objective of making sense of the natural
world. Accordingly, the science class could be organised as a genuine school scientific
activity (Izquierdo-Aymerich 2000).
Structuring school scientific activity around theoretical models would allow meaning-
fully re-enacting in the classroom a corpus of disciplinary knowledge that can be seen as
human heritage. In tune with many current statements in science curriculum policy, such a
corpus should be taught only if it enables subjects to understand how the natural world
works. This re-enactment, assisted by science teachers and textbooks, should not be
considered as a ‘rediscovery’ of complex ideas that took centuries of hard work for
humanity, but rather as a profoundly constructive appropriation of powerful intellectual
tools of cultural nature, presented in the science classroom with the level of formality
required for each problem and for every stage of learning. In this suggestion, I am again
resorting to the idea of a semantic conception of models as a third way between two widely
criticised teaching paradigms: the positivistic ‘transmission’ of ready-made statements
with little capacity of being used, and the radical constructivist ‘creation’ of emergent,
idiosyncratic ideas that just ‘functionally’ make sense of a very limited world.
In the case of explicitly examining the nature of scientific models, a semantic
conception could prove a powerful intellectual tool to confront naı̈ve conceptualisations
that socially circulate. In ‘traditional’ science teaching, theories have a halo of respect-
ability, and are presented in textbooks and teacher explanations as the key components of
what should be learnt; but this usually creates the false image that linguistic items are the
core of science. Following in class the semantic advocation to bring models to the forefront
(and this could be done without renouncing to theories) may construct a richer picture of
the scientific enterprise.
In traditional practices, it is also usual to find an iconic conception of models; according
to this conception, a scientific model is a mere (i.e., non-mediated) copy (reduced, static,
simplified, two-dimensional, or any other variant in the style) of the real thing being
studied. This view of the nature of the scientific activity is in many ways indebted to the
epistemological force that the empirico-positivistic, theory-based view still has in the
classrooms. The lack of meta-theoretical depth of this view promotes in science education
an impoverished image of the methodology of science, in which the theoretical elements
are dismissed, and the original, inventive and creative components of this way of ‘seeing’
the world are not apparent. This previous ‘misconception’ on the nature of scientific
models makes a good case for introducing in the classroom explicit discussion around what
models are; a semantic account of the construct could prove of tremendous use in such a
discussion.

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